Thursday, May 18, 2006

Too Alone

I'm too alone in the world, yet not alone enoughto make each hour holyI'm too small in the world, yet not small enoughto be simply in your presence, like a thing---just as it is.

(this, the poem that fell out when I opened the book after gettinghome. an unconscious echo of this evening's thoughts- spoken and un.this moment is holy. we see things not as they but we are- even, andmaybe especially- ourselves. rilke's self-reflexive twist) [1]

I want to know my own willand to move with it.And I want, in the hushed momentswhen the nameless draws near,to be among the wise ones---or alone.

I want to unfold.Let no place in me hold itself closed,for where I am closed, I am false.I want to stay clear in your sight.

I would describe myself like a landscape I've studiedat length, in detail;like a word I'm coming to understand;like a pitcher I pour from at mealtimes;

like my mother's face;like a ship that carried mewhen the waters raged.

- From Rilke's Book Of Hours translated by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy

Rilke’s choice of themes and his precision in expressing them make themes that are often neglected in poetry (and prose) outshine more dramatic subjects and ornate writing.

“... as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. Don't write love poems; … rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. … - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not." [3]

Welcome Pavi! [4]

Notes:

[1] Anaïs Nin puts it as, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

[2] As in Sufi poetry - God becomes the beloved. And there is no Without – God cannot exist without you and you cannot without God . A snippet from another poem in the collection,

[4] One more added to the list of people who will kill for poetry – this month has been good - Hatshepsut, Pavi ... : ) Look forward to their contributions (and their own insightful commentary) in the future…

Pavi, my fellow Rilke-lover – in our very first conversation she enlightened me on the importance of precision in poetry. On the difficulty in choosing the right words/expressions in poetry. Many words can express the same physical object, but each of them can trigger a distinct emotion(al memory). And a poem works or fails based on its ability to awaken that precise emotion. What better way to introduce her, than with a Rilke recording :)

Dear Contributors, do keep sending in your lovely selection of recordings, we love being challenged, surprised and tickled by your contributions.

After that stinging rejoinder to his last poem, I figured Marvell would want a good cry.

This is Marvell at his baroque best, each quatrain an intricate and polished gem - a new image or metaphor introduced, expanded and then beautifully closed out, and through it all the constant counterpoint of eyes and tears, ending with that glorious final line. This isn't, to me, a particularly moving poem in an emotional sense - I'm more apt to laugh out loud at the cleverness of the verses than to feel any real empathy for Marvell - but it's a sparklingly brilliant one.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell

Since you have world enough and timeSir, to admonish me in rhyme,Pray Mr Marvell, can it beYou think to have persuaded me?Then let me say: you want the artTo woo, much less to win my heart.The verse was splendid, all admit,And, sir, you have a pretty wit.All that indeed your poem lackedWas logic, modesty, and tact,Slight faults and ones to which I own,Your sex is generally prone;But though you lose your labour, IShall not refuse you a reply:

First, for the language you employ:A term I deprecate is "coy";The ill-bred miss, the bird-brained Jill,May simper and be coy at will;A lady, sir, as you will find,Keeps counsel, or she speaks her mind,Means what she says and scorns to fenceAnd palter with feigned innocence.

The ambiguous "mistress" next you setBeside this graceless epithet."Coy mistress", sir? Who gave you leaveTo wear my heart upon your sleeve?Or to imply, as sure you do,I had no other choice than youAnd must remain upon the shelfUnless I should bestir myself?Shall I be moved to love you, pray,By hints that I must soon decay?No woman's won by being toldHow quickly she is growing old;Nor will such ploys, when all is said,Serve to stampede us into bed.

When from pure blackmail, next you moveTo bribe or lure me into love,No less inept, my rhyming friend,Snared by the means, you miss your end."Times winged chariot", and the restAs poetry may pass the test;Readers will quote those lines, I trust,Till you and I and they are dust;But I, your destined prey, must lookLess at the bait than at the hook,Nor, when I do, can fail to seeJust what it is you offer me:Love on the run, a rough embraceSnatched in the fury of the chase,The grave before us and the wheelsOf Time's grim chariot at our heels,While we, like "am'rous birds of prey",Tear at each other by the way.

To say the least, the scene you paintIs, what you call my honour, quaint!And on this point what prompted youSo crudely, and in public too,To canvass and , indeed, make freeWith my entire anatomy?Poets have licence, I confess,To speak of ladies in undress;Thighs, hearts, brows, breasts are well enough,In verses this is common stuff;But -- well I ask: to draw attentionTo worms in -- what I blush to mention,And prate of dust upon it too!Sir, was this any way to woo?

Now therefore, while male self-regardSits on your cheek, my hopeful bard,May I suggest, before we part,The best way to a woman's heartIs to be modest, candid, true;Tell her you love and show you do;Neither cajole nor condescendAnd base the lover on the friend;Don't bustle her or fuss or snatch:A suitor looking at his watchIs not a posture that persuadesWilling, much less reluctant maids.

Remember that she will be stirredMore by the spirit than the word;For truth and tenderness do moreThan coruscating metaphor.Had you addressed me in such termsAnd prattled less of graves and worms,I might, who knows, have warmed to you;But, as things stand, must bid adieu(Though I am grateful for the rhyme)And wish you better luck next time.

No she doesn't stop with a passing comment on the previous post [1]. Hatshepsut, welcome!

[1] This poem needs no introduction. To ensure the best experience, dear listener, here is a link To his coy mistress. :)

Saturday, May 13, 2006

To his coy mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,This coyness, Lady, were no crime.We would sit down, and think which wayTo walk, and pass our long love's day.Thou by the Indian Ganges' sideShouldst rubies find: I by the tideOf Humber would complain. I wouldLove you ten years before the flood:And you should, if you please, refuseTill the conversion of the Jews.My vegetable love should growVaster than empires, and more slow.An hundred years should go to praiseThine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.Two hundred to adore each breast:But thirty thousand to the rest.An age at least to every part,And the last age should show your heart:For, Lady, you deserve this state;Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hearTime's wing'ed chariot hurrying near:And yonder all before us lieDeserts of vast eternity.Thy beauty shall no more be found;Nor, in thy marble vault, shall soundMy echoing song: then worms shall tryThat long preserved virginity:And your quaint honour turn to dust;And into ashes all my lust.The grave's a fine and private place,But none, I think, do there embrace. Now, therefore, while the youthful glueSits on thy skin like morning dew,And while thy willing soul transpiresAt every pore with instant fires,Now let us sport us while we may;And now, like amorous birds of prey,Rather at once our time devour,Than languish in his slow-chapped power.Let us roll all our strength, and allOur sweetness, up into one ball:And tear our pleasures with rough strife,Thorough the iron grates of life.Thus, though we cannot make our sunStand still, yet we will make him run.

Few poems in the English language are as influential [1] or as well-beloved as this one. And justly so. It's a particularly deceptive poem, one that opens on comic, mocking note and can be read, in its entirety, as a rather frustrated gentleman's desperate and hyperbolic attempt to get his lady into bed [2]. And yet somewhere in the middle of the poem, the silliness gives way to a darker sensibility and the poem gets down to business (a change in tone marvellously consonant with the change in meaning, vividly highlighting the two different arguments). What follows is arguably the most eloquent statement of the dictum 'carpe diem' ever put down in rhyme.

P.S. The text for this version comes from the Complete Poems published by Penguin Classics and edited by Elizabeth Story Donno. There are several discrepancies between this and other texts - most notably the use of glue rather than hue / hew in line 33. Donno argues that glue is what appears in the Folio, and is therefore the correct reading.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Falstaff's 'Honour' Speech

FALSTAFF 'Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him beforehis day. What need I be so forward with him thatcalls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricksme on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when Icome on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: oran arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no.Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What ishonour? a word. What is in that word honour? whatis that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it?he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no.Doth he hear it? no. 'Tis insensible, then. Yea,to the dead. But will it not live with the living?no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. ThereforeI'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon: and soends my catechism.

I couldn't resist this one. This is an amazing speech - a direct and mocking attack of everything that could be considered heroic or honourable, a speech against every war-monger, terrorist and martyr, against anyone who would kill and die for honour.

Hath not a Jew eyes?

To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, andhindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted mybargains, cooled my friends, heated mineenemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hathnot a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed withthe same food, hurt with the same weapons, subjectto the same diseases, healed by the same means,warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, asa Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poisonus, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we notrevenge? If we are like you in the rest, we willresemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christianwrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany youteach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but Iwill better the instruction.

A guest post from Mystery Cat. He writes, "Portia's speech got me thinking about Merchant of Venice. In spite of fond memories of elocution contests in school, it's not a play I was never very fond of. I never bought into the anit-Semitic theory butI found Shylock to be an unreasonably vindictive villain, something of a caricature. So it's kind of sad that his mildly incoherent defence of vengeance doesn't seem terribly unfamiliar today."